The Shading of a Girl

It's been a while since my last upload of one of my girl drawings.

Here is one after my third try on graphite shading.  Can't say if I'm pleased with it or not.  I'm sure there's always room for improvement, such as only after I sprayed it with fixative that I realized I didn't give her any ears!  I thought about adding the ears but somehow just felt that she didn't need one.  What do you think? ;)  Also it's difficult to give her a good nose job!  And if you start to pick up that I'm rather fond of "updo" hair style for my girls ... :D 

Now, let me be very honest here.  I have joined a few online girl drawing classes.  Each one of the tutors offer their own styles of girl images and different ways of drawing / painting the girls.  With these courses, my main goal is to learn the drawing and painting techniques only.  For the girl's "look", I'm trying hard to develop them from different references and work on it myself.

Here are the links to the various online classes.  Do check them out!

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

That's all for now my dear fellow bloggers and creatives.  Have a wonderful day!

"Moon" and "Prickly"

Here are 2 of my latest girl drawings.

"Moon", Pencil Sketch

"Moon" CU, Pencil Sketch

"Prickly", Pencil Sketch

"Prickly" CU, Pencil Sketch

Hope they didn't shock you too much. :)

When I started my girl drawings about a month ago, I imagined I would have loads of fun making up clothes for them.  But as soon as my pencil move to below neck line ... well you can see what have been happening from the above drawings!

I have to admit that I was in quite a shock initially, but after the first nude girl drawing (which I didn't include in this post), the resistance was gone. I found myself enjoying drawing them quite a lot!

As much as the girls brought me joy, they also touched on the fear associates with being a creative person.

I have hesitation to post them.  I worry about how people would react to them and if the drawings would change how people think of me.  (Not that I have any status and / or reputation to maintain.) Ultimately, it is fear of rejection to my drawing (hence me), which have me holding onto the drawings for some time.

But that's exactly the point. Unless I give up my creativity, rejection and acceptance come with the territory.  

To me, creativity is about freedom, the free will to follow my intuition and instinct to create.

So there you go, the fear is gone ...

As usual, my fellow bloggers and creatives, what do you think of my girls?

Fear

It looks like my neck pain is finally under "control" (via pain medication, chiropractic manipulation and improved sleeping.  Yes, apart from neck pain, I got mild insomnia on the side ... )

I should be feeling good but instead something else crops up.

Currently, I'm working on overcoming the "fear" in relation to some of my drawing subjects.  Sorry if the post read a bit cryptic here.  I need to sort out the fear before I could start talking about it.

At the mean time, here are some links which I used when I encounter such "sticky" situation.  Thought to share them with all my fellow bloggers and creatives.

The Rebel's Manifesto - Keri Smith

Tips and Tricks of An Art Slave - Eric Fortune

An Interview of Ray Caesar by Chippy Coates and Richard Scarry

(Quite a long interview.  The part which I'm most interested in is:  a piece of advice for a young art grad?)

(Not that I'm young and an art grad ...)

(If you're interested in Ray Caesar and Eric Forutune [and other fantastic artists] works, follow the Artists link on my side bar.  The link is updated on a regular basis.) 

Enjoy and have a wonderful week ahead!

More Girls ...

Aside from dealing with the nasty neck / shoulder pain, I try my best to keep up my girl drawings.

Here are two of the sketches done two weeks ago.

"Girl 3" pencil sketch

"N Girl 1" pencil sketch

Right now I'm concentrating on the front view plus getting the "look" right, if you know what I mean.

Sorry for such short post ... have to be really careful not to overload myself with computer and drawing work.  (BIG LONG SIGH)

Hope you still enjoy my drawings and do let me know what you think.

Cheers and have wonderful day.

Girls

Instead of working on The Holeys, I gave in to try out drawing girls head.

Is it because of procrastination, bored of my own ideas,  new object of interest?  Probably all of them.

I won't pretend to know what I'm doing.  In fact, here is the funny thing about my 1st girl head drawing.  The idea is to draw a female face looking directly at me.  By the time when I finished the drawing, you can see that it became a young girl looking down (at something)!  Should I laugh or cry?  ;)

"Girl 1" pencil sketch

 
For the next girl, I drew the eyes much smaller and further apart from each other to see how she would look like.  O.k. she looked quite odd but in an endearing way.  I actually quite like her.  (Gee, am I weird?)

"Girl 2" pencil sketch

There is still a long way to go before I could draw a whole girl and let alone of painting one.  Nonetheless, I believe that my drawing skill is improving with each sketch & drawing that I made.

So my dear fellow creatives and blogger, what do you think of my drawings so far?  All comment are welcomed.

Til then, stay warm (in my part of the world) or stay cool (in your parts of the world) ... 

P.S.  Apologize for the poor pix :(  No other excuses than my very poor photo skill

The Holeys

Here are some of The Holeys I've been working on.

"Rupert", micron pen on card stock

 "Winnifred", micron pen on stock card

 

"Edgar", micron pen on stock card 

 "Lizzy" (Elizabeth), micron pen on card stock

I like that they have the potential to spin off into other art projects.  Here are a few I'm thinking about:

1) A set (or a few sets) of hand-drawn Holey Calendar Card 2011, like this ...

"Rupert - Mr. January", micron pen on stock card

2) A set (or a few sets) of hand-drawn Holey Note Card

3) A story blog of The Holeys

4) Turn them into paintings

But with my current health condition and other art project, I wonder if I'm asking too much of myself?  Also, I really need to spend more time on learning & practicing both drawing and painting skills.  But ..... what is the best way to learn & practice other than working on a project?  Any thoughts?

Anyway, my fellow bloggers and creative, I'd love to hear of your comments about The Holeys.  Take care and have nice week ahead. :D

"The Holeys" copyright 2010 Hybrid J / Jamie Lee. All rights reserved.

Diary Project

Last year when I first started blogging, I had come across the Diary Project. I had thought to myself if only I could draw, I'd love to join in the fun!

Just like all things, I forgot all about it til I read this post from Linda of Tortagialla. I wasn't going to be forgetful this time, hence I jumped right in and signed up to reserve a date page (12/11/2011).

Here is my page. (Apologize for my very poor photo skill ...)



"The Holeys" copyright 2010 Hybrid J / Jamie Lee. All rights reserved.

I have drawn up this little guy many months ago. Every so often, I'd wonder what I'm going to do with him and thanks to the Diary Project, I can show him off now. And not only that, this small artwork has inspired me to develop an art project with "The Holeys" (that's what he is!) So watch out as there'll be some exciting announcement about these little fellows.

There are still some date pages form the project looking for artworks and the deadline for submission is 01/07, so my dear fellow creatives, hurry up to join in and show off your wonderful work!

Perspective Drawing and Creature

Still on the mend ... but managed to start drawing (or more like picking up some desperately needed drawing lessons and exercises from a work book).

Here are 2 of them. It is a combination of observational drawing and imaginative drawing. (NOTE: They are more like practice drawing than proper drawing.)



When I first read about perspective drawing lesson, all the "sighting" and "measuring proportion" seems very complicated and hard to understand. But after a few hours of drawing a simplified version of a small corner of my kitchen, I was amazed of how real (perspective wise) it looked on paper.

Perspective drawing is still a newly acquired skill which I need tonnes of practices. But I found the process of using lines to create 3D objects / landscape on paper immensely interesting. It is almost "magical"!

You might also notice from my 2 drawings that my inclination to all things weird & strange keep cropping up everywhere. When I finished the little box drawing and the office corner drawing, I had this dialogue in my head.

Me: O.K. that's good! You did well in your practice, but ... something's missing?

me: What's missing?

Me: "Stuff" ... "Your Stuff" ...

me: What do you mean by "My Stuff"?

Me: I mean ... yes, this is your drawing but it is NOT your drawing!

I looked at the drawings again and the little spotted creature started to take form and crept into frame.

Me: Ah, there you go, you dumbo! Now that's more like it!

I think I was so caught up in learning the drawing skills (based on observation, hence realistic drawing) that I actually took the term "observation" to the letter. I drew what I saw and forgot to continue to let my imagination fuel my creativity.

Through the little spotted creature, I reclaimed MY drawings!

(BTW, I'm still wondering what kind of creature it is ... any idea?)

Procrastination ...

My neck pain is getting a lot better but after a few weeks away from drawing, I'm having trouble of getting back to the horse. I'm not quite sure what's happening but here are a list of the usual suspects.

- Disruption of normal weekly drawing schedule

I was just starting to get into a drawing routine then came all these "mishaps." So the habit was not well developed. I think it will require some mental strength to pull this off.

- Perfectionism

I have been working on some drawing exercises from a workbook before the neck pain and all the "mishaps". I got thorough the first two with no problems. (I mean I was able to "reproduce" exactly as the exercises required.) Come the 3rd one, I could only work out 1/3 of it and the rest is rubbish.

Since then, whenever I open the workbook, I have this voice in my head saying: see, you can't draw! No matter how hard you try, you'll never get it.

I knew it was the perfectionist inside of me trying to dissuade my effort. But what surprised me was I believe in her! Why do I expect myself to get the drawing exercises and the actual painting all right in one go? This is ridiculous!

As much as I hate to admit it, the ongoing war between me and the perfectionist seems never ends. :(

- "Mishaps" update

Yeap, the mishaps continue. The latest one is about my oven. I'm still waiting for a spare part to fix the oven door.

Really, really hope this is the last one ...


So in the mist of all of these, what do I do? I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with this quote: When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!

I bought myself a set of paint brush and a pencil case. I'm not a big fan of synthetic paint brushes. But how could you walk away from these beauties? The last time I owned a pencil case I was about 16 years old. But since I started to draw, instead of scouting the usual handbag, I spent a lot of time browsing cute stationery stores.



With all of these happenings, it's really messing me up. So I think I'm going to stay in my "cruise mode" a little bit longer. Also I'm contemplating to do some basic drawing classes. There is only so much I could learn by myself through books and practices. It will be good to have a real person I could seek immediate advice.

Getting Worse Before Coming Back ...

Before things started to get better, it had to get worse ...

My mobile phone handed in its resignation (with immediate effect) last Friday. I got myself a new mobile phone (with built-in camera) over the weekend. :)

And with this, the tide finally turned.

After a rather painful deep tissue message / manipulation by my chiropractor, I'm having less neck and back pain. Mobility is gradually coming back.

The laptop came back from the repairer with about 80% function. That's fine as it is quite an old laptop. I'm trying not to work it too much so that it could last for another 12 months or so before I switch to Mac.

I've quickly whipped up a very small drawing (below) for the dream project of Art House Co Op. It will be among Art House's permanent collection.


"Birdie", silver & white gel pens, 13cm (w) x 9cm (h)

So I'm slowly getting back ...

For everyone who sent loving / supportive comments and wonderful emails, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your wonderful friendship work magic on my very stiff neck and back.

You gals are natural-born healers! xxoo

The Day Has Come ...

I knew from the day when I first started to draw, my lack of both drawing and painting skill will eventually caught up on me.

After I finished "Jake" and as much as I wanted to soldier on, I've had some funny nagging feelings.

There was no lack of drawing ideas, but it became harder and harder to bring them onto paper. I would have this rather clear image of a drawing in my mind, but my hands refused to do the work.

There was a huge gap occurred during the transmission of idea. I would find myself wanting to draw an object facing directly to me but after hours and hours of drafting, the bloody damned thing still appeared to me sitting on its side!

Something's wrong with my eyes? But it can't be. I just had my eyes checked and they were working perfect. (Well, the actual comment from the optometrist is: Your eyesight is working normal as per your age group. Ahem, what does it mean?)

I had a "hunch" of what was going on. But before jumping onto any conclusion, I decided to try one more thing.

I was to "copy" some drawings to see if it will improve my drawing skills. So I picked a small plant drawing from one of my reference books and began to copy it onto my sketch book. Easy right? Nope!

Though I got the general outline of the small plant right, everything else (i.e. branches, leaves etc) was wonky. Yes, I did draw a small plant but it didn't look like the one in the reference book.

This proved that my "hunch" was right. The ability to draw is more than the desire to create, vivid imagination and hands/eyes co-ordination. It is also about perception - the artist's way of seeing.

I'm to take a (hopefully) short break from my art projects and turn to do a bit more structural study of drawing skills.

So if you don't see many new drawings being post here, don't think that I have given up. Far from it, I'm actually working harder than before to become a more fluent artist!

(Gee, did I just say that ... I'm an artist!!??)

The Color Project

After much thinking, numerous deep breathing and putting on extra thick human skin, I've send off 3 of my drawings to The Color Project hosted by The Art House Co Op (USA).

For The Color Project (Red) - my submission is "The Rose Thief"
For The Color Project (Blue) - my submission is "Hostage"
For The Color Project (Yellow) - my submission is "The Hoarder"

* You could read and see these drawings from my earlier posts here, here and here. *

These drawings will be shown in an exhibition under the same title "The Color Project" on 21/05/2010 at Brooklyn Art Library. A book will also be published to include all artworks submitted to the project.

Art House Co Op is a community based art organization. Their goal is to promote art, hence they do not "judge" any artworks or artists. They believe art should be accessed by everyone. There are free to participate projects and pay to participate projects (like The Color Project). Please check out their site to join in upcoming projects. (I've just joined project "the dreams I dream about".)

I'm very aware of where I am at my drawings. I'm just a beginner and still have tonnes to learn. May be I should not send off my artworks to anything at all, but I have these ideas about submission.

- To create an anchor for me to focus on finishing a drawing. Otherwise, I'll sit on it forever.

- It's my way to understand what it means to have an artwork exhibit. (Though it's in the States and not in my home country, I reckon I could still get a feel of it! Hmm ... am I making sense??)

- Being an independent /self taught / part-time creative, I need to create and find my own opportunities. No one is going to invite me for an exhibition and ask about my work ... at least at this stage.

- To widen my creative network and continue to make connection with other creatives.

- And of course, there's always that little bit of vanity and instant gratification going on. ;)

This submission of mine is in no way to undermine any artists for their hard earn skill and reputation in their fields. It is my way to try to find a footing in the vast art world.

I'd like to make use of this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me all this time. Without you, I would never ever realized the artist in me and would never dream of submitting my artwork for an exhibition. Each one of you is my inspiration and role model to take my art further.

My very very humble thanks. xxoo

Jake

"Jake", ink on paper, 30 cm (H) x 21cm (W)

Mist and petals dance around the Horned One ...
He forbids me to go into the woods ...
But his sweet voice lingers in my ears ...

Years and years ago, before my big discovery that I could draw, I bought two artist mannequins. (The one you could get from most art supplies stores.) One male and one female. They were about 30cm in height.

Well, this might sound strange and weird to you. But in the hands of a little nutter like me, the mannequins became something else.

I talk to them lots of time, especially if I have a bad day in the office. I would pretend they are either my most sympathetic friends who listen endlessly to my pathetic complaints, or h/she is my boss and I'll argue with h/her until h/she agrees with my proposal. Oh, yes, at times, it gets a bit physical. I'll keep "adjusting" their limbs til my steam is all gone.

At one stage, I thought about painting them with colors. But knowing myself, I would get bored with things quite easily. And as soon as I got sick and tired of something (mostly objects, not real people), I either give them away or leave them on the shelf to gather dust. I decided against it and leave them "nude" all these years.

Over Easter break, while I was moaning my personal issues to them, I found myself looking at them in a new way (an artist way!?) It then dawned on me they could be the subjects of my drawing! I think they have potentials to become a major art project for the year. I've already got a few ideas spinning in my tiny head. But then, this also depends on how my drawing skill is going to improve over time. But hey, no try no gain! We'll see.

AND my little mannequins not only become a painting, they lure the sleepy writer out of me. I spent last night thinking about Jake and his story. Nothing major, nothing big ... but I had a blast!

My dear fellow creatives and bloggers, what do you think of Jake?

Nightmare Behind The Door

Here is a little drawing for your musing. :)

"Nightmare Behind The Door", micron pen on paper, 30cm (H) x 21cm (W)

The idea is not original and I'm sure sixty millions other artists had done it before. Nonetheless I hope it brings a little smile on your face.

This drawing was done as a consolation after I mucked up another drawing. I was in no mood to paint it and also I have a feeling that it works better in simple black and white, like a cartoon stripe from newspaper.

About the "muck up", I have learn the DON'Ts of my painting process.

1) Do not start painting when I'm not sure about the overall composition.

I knew I wasn't happy with the composition but thought by painting it, the drawing will begin to work. I was wrong!

2) Do not start painting when I'm stressing out.

I was stressing out on some major personal matters and thought working on a drawing would help to clam me down. The fact is I have kind of obsessive (addictive?!) personality. Once I got a problem or issue at hand, I'm like a dog with a bone.

With my mind chewing onto the personal matter, I failed to make sensible creative decision for my drawing.

3) Just because I love "graduated wash" background, does not mean it is suitable for a drawing.

I have been practicing to use ink to do graduated wash background for a little while. Though far from being good at it, I think I got the hang of it. So I decided to use it for a drawing. But due to the subjects (plants) of my drawing, the graduated wash background made the plants looks like they're sprouting out from mist.

4) Do not change color theme of a drawing after color test.

I got into a habit to do color test for my drawing. The test is about ink color mixing and how each color works / compliment each other. At this stage, I just can't visualize how some colors work without seeing them on paper. I'll do a rough sketch of my drawing on cartridge paper and test it out with different color combination. (I'm quite picky of the tone and hue of colors.)

With this plant drawing, for some unknown reasons, I decided to change part of the background color from the original tested grayish blue to gray. I thought I was making the drawing more moody, but the gray tone I used actually made the plant looked like they were coming out from muddy plain.

I'm not sure if I want to work on the plant drawing for now as this entire "muck up" experience is still very disturbing and frustrating to me.

I think I'm going to give myself a break and after all, Easter holiday is just two days away. Good to wind down and recharge ..... but that personal matter ..... arrrrgh .....

Rabbit Hole (again ...)

"Rabbit Hole", ink and paper, 21cm (H) x 30cm (W)

I know, I know ... the background was so poorly painted that I should not display it at all. Or at least I should crop it better before uploading it.

The fact is I'm loving everything about this drawing. I don't know why. And I can't quite put a finger on the feelings I have when I'm looking at it.

I love animals and intend to become good at drawing them. But I'm never into rabbits. Yes, they're cute and that's about it. And the reason why I did this drawing was because of all these bunnies cropping up everywhere. (Read my earlier post here.) So I took that as a "sign" to make a drawing of rabbits. Well, basically to "exorcise" them out of my system. :D

But after finishing the rabbit, I kept looking at it and looking at it and looking at it. I can't quite tear my eyes from the bunny. And then I started to think about the other rabbit which was about to jump out from the rabbit hole. What does it look like? BANG! I remembered I had written about my ears turning into bunny ears. OMG, that was ME climbing out from the rabbit hole! I swear that I wasn't thinking about myself when I was working on the 2nd rabbit. Actually I wasn't thinking of anything at all. It just happened.

This is really freaky but in a kind of nice way, I think. ;)

As usual, my fellow bloggers and creatives, I'd love to know what you think about this drawing.

P.S. Wonder if I'll regret of putting this drawing up when I become a world famous artist someday, hahaha!

We're All In This Together

"We're All In This Together", ink and paper, 21cm (H) x 30cm (W)

This one was finished about a week ago. Have been waiting for fine weather to take photo. (Not that we had much last week ... a freaking hail and storm caused a minor damage of the back porch of my house ... hence pls forgive the less of brightness of the photo)

After all the bright color starfishes, I decided to go for a new color palette. A kind of musty tone which is more my kind of color. I'm quite pleased with my pen and brush work of the mushrooms.

This was my first attempt to use washes and a bit of freehand drawing to create foreground. And honestly, I had the slightest idea of what I was doing. It was one thing to read about the technique from books and another to do it. So I'd like to know what you all think about it. Have I been able to create the "impression" of a "passable" grassland or it just looked smudges of green? ;)

Also, I'll be very interested to know if the the title and visual work together. I hope my usual whimsical / quirky take on things still there in this drawing.

Though I'm still struggling (i.e. learning) to draw, I'm enjoying it greatly. And I think I manage to improve my overall skill drawings after drawings.

Til then, have a good day my fellow bloggers and creatives.

Drafting and Sharing

Another hot weekend ... you know me, can't really work under summer heat, hence so far could only managed to finish draft of a new drawing plus the transfer.

One thing I started to pick up about my drafting. I don't do loose sketch type of draft like most artists. (It is because I don't know how to "loose sketch"!) My so call draft is actually quite detail in terms of composition. All subject (objects?) are drawn and place at the right place in this draft stage. The only thing I leave out is the fine details of an object, e.g. the vines of a leave. And this usually require a whole day to finish.

After transfer (either by hand-held "tracer" or transfer paper (Saral) or DIY light table) and depends if the transfer requires enlargement or not, I'll need to re-draw some parts. Easily another day's of work.

I'm beginning to think if it makes more sense to simply start drafting on the actual drawing paper. But then, as the name "draft" indicates, there are deemed to be lots of alterations (using vinyl eraser) before I'm satisfied with the drawing. This will leave "bruises" on the paper which would affect the coloring stage. Guess the only way to find out is to give it a try.

Well enough of talk about my drawing and let's do some sharing.

1) Here are 2 of my favourite reference books for drawing.

- Plants (check details here)



- Animals (check details here)


I got them last Christmas and have been poring over them for inspiration. Also through them, I re-discovered my love and obsession of "vintage" illustrations. I'm planning trips to some 2nd hand book stores to see if I could find more books on Victorian illustration.

2) My Basic Drawing Tools (as shown in between the 2 books):


- AS pigmented ink could be diluted to achieve watercolor effect
- Speedball pen
- No. 4 Round Brush

Camouflage 1 & 2

Finally I got the drawings sorted out ... kind of.

1) Camouflage 1:



"Camouflage 1", pen and paper, 30cm(H) x 21cm (W)

This was finished last Monday and as mentioned in my earlier post, the drawing doesn't feel right to me. It looks to me "static".

2) Camouflage 2:


"Camouflage 2", ink and paper, 30cm (H) x 21cm (W)

By making the lampshade tilted to one side with the cheeky starfish hanging onto it, I think it shows the "camouflage" idea better and allows the fun / humor to come off stronger. The drawback of this one is that I'm not satisfied with the design of the starfish. I preferred the 1st one.

I can't really say the drawings are finished as I still have a nagging feelings towards them. There's something missing. Too much white space? The lamps need to sit on something, like a table top? (Boring!) Add shadow at the lamp base to make it looks real??! You can see I'm a bit lost.

Anyway, I've learn some valuable lessons from these two drawings.

- I can't produce the same drawing twice. Though the alteration is minimal, I was definitely in another mood and can't seem to copy from my previous work. Also spontaneity plays a big part in all the details in my drawing and it is something that cannot be repeated.

However, I do wonder if it is related to my lack of drawing skill, hence I can't "re-work" the same drawing? Would a trained / experienced artist be able to reproduce h/her work more easily? Any comments / insights would be most welcomed.

- I'm still having heaps of troubles in applying ink wash. Thanks to Rowena and Chapter Forty, I got useful tips of applying some water color painting techniques to my drawing. I'm yet to learn more about it.

Just like most thing in life, it all comes down to trail and error plus practice. Let's hope that improvement will begin to show over a period of time.

Enough of my babbling ... as usual, my fellow creatives and bloggers, what do you think of these two drawings? Which one you prefer? (Or none at all!)

Last but not least, The Monday Project girls are back online! Check out the new project. Do come and play along! :)

Summer Heat

Don't mean to be absence from blogging for this long. It's just the hot weather down here is not conductive to creativity. (Might not be to you, definitely to me.) I'm feeling fuzzy and muggy all the time. :(

But don't think that I haven't been creating. I finished a drawing two nights ago. However, as soon as I laid down my brush, I knew something was off about it. Actually I think I knew it all the way, but I lack the experience (?) aptitude (?) to notice it without completion.

Last night I re-drafted part of it and I'm planning to finish the transfer by Fri so I could begin the actual drawing over the weekend. I'm trying to be cool (both in mental and physical sense, haha!), forgiving and accepting about the "late discovery". But can't help not to feel a bit frustrated. I'm also have a strong feeling that as I get into drawing more, this situation will happen more. Hmmm ... worry ... Worry ... WORRY ...

This prompt me to wonder if the same thing happens to other fellow creatives / artists / bloggers. I'd like to know how you deal with it.

On the similar topic, Keri Smith has created "The Artist Survival Kit". Check it out. Also read her blog entry on 05/02 about "How To Feel Miserable As An Artist". (Sorry, unable to get the link for you.)

That's all for now ... stay cool!

The Hoarder

1) "The Hoarder" (scan), ink on paper, 30cm (H) x 21cm (W)



2) "The Hoarder" (photo, click to view detail), ink on paper, 30cm (H) x 21cm (W)

After much thoughts, I decided to post "The Hoarder".

Reason why I felt (still feel) reluctant was that I didn't feel comfortable about the yellow of the starfish. It wasn't what I wanted. But because of the "lightfast" quality of ink, I had a hard time to maintain one tone of yellow in one smooth application.

My original idea is to have a rather light yellow on the body of the starfish. But with such fast drying medium, I kept leaving streaks of light yellow color. Then I began to apply more yellow to cover up the "streaks" which lead to the present yellow.

The problem of color streak is less obvious if I'm using darker tone of a color. Anytime I dilute the ink to create a kind of watercolor effect or simply want a lighter shade of a color, the streaks show up. This is driving me nuts and I can't seem to avoid it. (BTW, my fellow creatives, do you know how I can avoid streaks while coloring?)

Anyway, by avoiding to look at the drawing for a couple of days then returned to look at it again, I found it less "disagreeable". I also reminded myself that I'm still learning my craft. It is o.k. to produce "not good enough" artwork. And that 368 (yes, I counted it!) light bulbs are a real labor of love. I owe it to myself to show this drawing!

As usual, I'd like to hear of your comments. Thanks!

NOTE:

- The use of yellow is to follow a prompt of a project which requires drawings to be done relying heavily on one color.

- 1st pix: This is the scanned version of the drawing which shows a more accurate color representation from the original.

- 2nd pix: This is taken by digital camera. The color is less vibrant (due to my lack of skill to take decent photos) but the details (i.e. shading) on the light bulbs are clearer.

I'll need to find a better way(s)? to display my drawings ... hmmm ...